Steph Curry Talks His Collab With Express and His Extraordinary Season

Why does it feel like America still doesn't know how good Stephen Curry is? The 26-year-old is currently leading the Golden State Warriors to the best record in the NBA. He's on his way to a presumptive All-Star start, and is quietly on his way to becoming the best shooter…ever. No, seriously. Nobody has ever reached the benchmark of 50-40-90 (that's field goal, three point and free throw percentages for a season) while shooting as much as Curry does.

Curry, son of NBA great Dell Curry has long been a favorite of basketball junkies, and this year the chatter about his MVP candidacy is gaining traction only a quarter of the way through the season. But the adoration of hoops nerds is nothing compared to the love for Curry and the Warriors in the Bay Area. The day after Curry dropped a casual 34-9-7 line in a win against the Thunder at Oakland's Oracle arena (nicknamed the Roaracle for the legendary loudness of its home crowd), the elderly teller at San Francisco's famous Bob's Donuts gabbed across the counter to a young customer about the previous night's game with the fervor of a veteran commentator. Witnessing the Roaracle in person, Curry emphatically raising his hands to the crowd after his signature quick-release three pointers, it's not hard to see why the whole region has pinned their championship hopes to his number 30 jersey.

Now Curry, as relad a family man off the court as he is a predator on it, is stepping into the mainstream spotlight as the new face of Express, the first men's brand ambassador in the company's 30 year history. We caught up with Curry in San Francisco at his first shoot for the the brand (styled by legendary menswear-head George Cortina) to talk about the Warriors championship aspirations, playing point guard in the brutal Western Conference, and why Express was the perfect fit for the Steph Curry Experience.

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Tell me about the West this season?

Every night is some kind of test. It's usually not decided until the last few minutes, which I know for fans is fun, but for us it's...

…high stress games?

Very much so.

For the past few years you guys have been on the rise. Now you have legitimate championship goals. How is the team handling the pressure?

Every night is an opportunity to show what we're about, to send a message. In the playoffs there's three teams you have to fight through to get a championship. Any type of message you can send along the way, that you're a team that's gonna be there at the end, you gotta take it.

You can't drop any winnable games

That's what good teams do, win the games you're supposed to, steal games on the road.

People like to talk about the Warriors' shooting, but your defense is excellent, as well.

This year is probably the first year people are actually talking about our defense as more than a fluke. The last three years I think we've been top five. But there's so many other storylines with our team, how hot we are the offensive end.

Your new coach Steve Kerr is a legendary shooter, a five-time champion. How has the team responded to his style?

He's been a GM before, a player, a commentator. He's been around the league for 20-plus years. He's seen all different sides of the game. He's had two great coaches he's played for, Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich. Popovich is someone he still talks to today about how he can be better as a coach. He was prepared to take the job. Obviously, a lot of us didn't know there was going to be a coaching vacancy over the summer, but he and his staff have done a great job. It's been fun so far.

In the offseason not many people were talking about the addition of Marreese Speights, but he's been a beast off the bench.

Mo-V-P, Mo-buckets. With David Lee out, Mo and Draymond Green have filled that role. Mo is having one of the best years of his career. He'd shown that he could do it from time to time, but doing it every night, he should be really proud. He's been a huge asset for us.

On a team trying to win a championship there's not really any room to slack.

Yeah, everybody is locked in mentally to the mission, what the goal is. With us, every night you don't know who's gonna beat you. We're a deep team.

You played against Russell Westbrook last Thursday night. You two are the league's highest scoring point guards. Are there guys like that you get especially pumped to play against, to guard, guys you know are gonna be a handful?

At my position it's every night. Russ, Chris Paul, Damian Lillard, John Wall. A lot of the young point guards coming up, and the old vets. Tony Parker is still doing what he does. I don't get caught up in the one-on-one matchups. Literally every night you have to bring your A-game. But I know who is playing well throughout the season, my counterparts. It's fun to see the point guard position in a good place right now, the competition, guys fighting for the top spot.

Your partner in the backcourt Klay Thompson, is he as chill off the court as he is while he's draining threes?

He's just like that off the court, probably more chill. His first year we never heard him talk, even in practice, in the locker room. I've gotten to know him a lot better off the court. This past summer, with Team USA, we played together. We did a lot of stuff together, that was a big bonding time for us. You get to be in different situations, different atmospheres with him and have fun, that builds the chemistry you need to be successful. There's gonna be situations where you gotta struggle together, and we gotta stick together.

Both you and Klay grew up with dads who played in the NBA. Are there any style tips you picked up from your dad while he was playing?

When he played they didn't have the dress code, but he still wore suits to games. His team used to have mandatory suits on the bus and plane rides. He always had a little bit of style. A lot of buttons on the suits. He enjoyed that part, getting dressed up on game day. Now obviously, with the dress code, no matter if you're into it or not, you gotta do a little something.

**What are you most comfortable wearing? **

I wear a suit from time to time. Mostly it's an effortless style kind of thing. Really easy. I don't try to overthink it, and I have a lot of help at home [nodding towards his wife Ayesha.] In the last three years I've slimmed my look a lot.

What made Express the right fit for your brand?

It's a brand I've worn for a long time, even without a professional affiliation. When I first got to the league, me and my wife would go shopping for my game looks, I didn't have a stylist or anything, and Express was one of my staple stores. When they called, it made perfect sense.

Still no stylist?

Unofficially. My wife's best friend is a stylist and she's come down to the Bay and we've gone shopping. She helps me out a little bit.

Are there any dudes on the team who spend a little too much time in front of the mirror?

We used to have one, Toney Douglas was like that. He's not on the team anymore, but he'd spend an hour getting dressed. For the most part everybody's pretty normal. Andre Iguodala probably has the most extreme style day to day. He's the guy that stands out. We don't have too many guys feeling themselves.

It's a team with a lot of tough dudes.

For the most part. They pretend to be at least.

Back to basketball: analytics has a growing impact on basketball analysis, like how we know now that long twos are inefficient shots. Is that something you guys think about at all?

There are two parts that I look at: as a defensive team, yeah, we entice those shots. You take away the three and you take away the paint and you live with whatever else they're gonna shoot. And I look at how far I run during games [which is now logged by the league's SportsVU cameras]. If one game I'm running six miles, the next one four, you can gauge where you're at for recovery days so you don't overert yourself.

Other than that, it's really hard to break the game down to that level. You can understand it, but to have a player adjust based on what those numbers mean, it's hard. If in the moment I'm coming down the court, if I shoot better from my right-hand dribble than my left-hand dribble, I'm not really thinking about that during the game like "I gotta make it to my right hand because I shoot 20% better." But you can work on it in practice and make it more natural over a long period of time.

Some NBA experts say you might be the best shooter ever. Does that kind of blow your mind?

It does. I know all the greats, Ray Allen, Reggie Miller, my coach, my dad. How you judge it is based on the individual. Is it percentage, is it the number of makes? But the one key thing is longevity, which is something I'm aiming for. I'm six years in. In ten years if I can still say I'm shooting where I am now, that would be surreal.